


Through You, And I Know

by nihilegi



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Fix-It, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mention of Canonical Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-07-29 18:21:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 13,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20086678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nihilegi/pseuds/nihilegi
Summary: Harrington was the boy’s name, and everything in Billy was arching towards him subconsciously.AKA: What if Billy and Steve had even one single interaction during ST3?





	1. Interlude One

_The creature made its home within Billy — that was the vessel’s name, Billy — and its essence stretched from the boy’s mouth to the tips of his fingers and toes, commandeering him utterly and completely. Learning to walk took a few tries, the creature moving unsteadily and falling into a heap of knees and elbows more than once. Eventually it could move the boy normally, like the puppet he was. _

_And then the creature delved deeper into Billy’s mind, abandoning his body and its mechanics for the time being. For the next few days at least, the creature would need to remain dormant, like Billy was just behaving as his normal self. This meant prying apart every aspect of his character, learning him so as to imitate him. _

_There were people in Billy’s mind — a beautiful woman in white that Billy loved and a tall looming man that he didn’t. A bright-haired child on a skateboard that evoked a fierce sense of protectiveness in him. There were a number of children in Billy’s mind, though most were on the outskirts, shrouded in shame. A baseball bat, a spike of fear. The creature put this line of thinking on the back burner, vowing to return to it, but now there was something more pressing. _

_Another boy, this one closer to Billy’s age. There were many images of this one floating around Billy’s mind — him playing some sports game in shorts (and perhaps Billy’s eyes had drifted lower than they should have), him showering after the fact with water sluicing off his chest, him bloody and beaten as Billy looked down at his own bruised fists, horror spiking within him. _

_These were the only memories that sent Billy’s consciousness reeling. The boy struggled to reach the surface again, or at least to claw the memories away from the creature, but it maintained a firm hold and waited until Billy had tired himself out again. _

_Harrington was the boy’s name, and everything in Billy was arching towards him subconsciously. He is the one Billy loves, the creature reasoned. An unfamiliar emotion, but one that was easy enough to emulate. It could pull off Love, of this the creature was certain. At least in the days leading up to the end._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a good half of this thing written already, and i'll probably update once or twice a week. this is the first time i've written something that i haven't posted all at once, so it'll probably be completed sooner rather than later.
> 
> [playlist of 80s-esque synthpop](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3brzulDbKYJnbucD6AwN0A?si=BeOGYkMARieJ56GMaWzasg)
> 
> (i listened to this playlist while writing. check it out if you want!)


	2. Chapter One

“We can always take a break and come back to this tomorrow,” Robin tried for a third time, stretching her arms over her head and yawning silently. “I don’t see why it’s so crucial to translate this whole thing today.”

“Come on, Buckley. Like you’ve got anything better to do,” Steve scoffed, leaning even closer to the whiteboard and accidentally brushing it with his nose. He waited patiently for Robin’s predictably scathing comment and wasn’t disappointed.

“Careful not to cross your eyes for too long. My dad said they can get stuck like that,” she said wisely. Steve rolled his eyes, about to reply something equally snarky, when Dustin interrupted.

“Can you two stop bantering for one damn second?” He snapped, pausing the recording. “I think I’ve got this word. Zapade.” Dustin stood and walked up to the whiteboard, hip checking Steve out of the way. Slowly and methodically, he scribbled the word _западe_ in scrawling Cyrillic on a page in his trusty legal pad.

Robin, perpetually on dictionary duty (since she could find the words twice as fast as Dustin and Steve), sat up straight and pulled the book towards her with a renewed interest in the proceedings. Steve watched as she flipped through the pages, absent-mindedly catching her lip between her teeth as she concentrated. As much as he’d complained about it earlier, and as unwelcome as her comments often were, he was glad she was there.

(Mostly because it would be awkward to continue hiding this from her, considering Scoops Ahoy wasn’t a very large establishment.)

The bell next to the register was tapped once, the shrill sound causing all three of them to jump. The mall was due to close in less than an hour, and the crowd was lessening considerably. There’d only been a handful of customers in the last half hour, and Steve and Robin took turns to go scoop their ice cream as quickly as possible so they could return to the back room. Steve had tried to get Dustin to do it a couple of times, but he’d predictably refused.

“Can’t. Think of the health code violations,” Dustin said, this time before Steve could even ask. He rolled his eyes dramatically and pulled his hat back on, checking himself out in the reflective freezer door before throwing the window open.

“Welcome to Scoops Ahoy! I’ll be with you in… _Billy_?” Steve stuttered, reeling back. Oh, hell.

Standing in front of the register was Billy Hargrove.

“Very funny, Steve,” Dustin said, glancing up at Billy, returning to his work, and doing one hell of a double-take to look at him again. Letting out a less-then-manly squeak, Dustin dove under the table. Robin spared him a glance before sighing and continuing her search through the dictionary.

Walking out of the back room to stand at the register, Steve tried with everything in him to maintain his composure. He hadn’t had any interaction with Billy since _that_ night, other than their occasional, unavoidable run-ins. It was a small town. Steve had a working hypothesis that attempting to avoid someone in a small town only guaranteed you’d run in to them at some inopportune time, in some inopportune place.

(The time was apparently _now_ and the place was apparently _here_.)

“Billy,” Steve said politely.

“Hey, Harrington,” Billy said, flashing Steve a smile that sent him reeling back to their basketball days. It was almost predatory. Steve’s heartrate picked up as he weighed the pros and cons of fighting or fleeing. His body seemed to make the decision for him, and he found himself frozen in place as Billy’s eyes raked over him. God, Steve wished he was wearing _anything_ but his stupid Scoops Ahoy uniform.

“Can I, uh, get you anything?” He asked.

“Sure. What do you recommend?” Billy replied, his voice saccharine. Steve’s toes curled and he resisted the urge to turn and make incredulous eye contact with Robin. She’d been in his graduating class, so she was definitely familiar with how Billy _should_ have been acting. This was not it. Why the fuck was he even there?

“Um, I’m not sure. Depends on what you usually like. What flavors do you usually lean towards? If you like chocolate, we have a killer Fudge Tidal Wave. Savvy Strawberry’s good if you’re craving something sweeter.”

“Hm.” Steve wanted to point out that Billy wasn’t even looking at the flavors on display, but he’d probably have to break eye contact with him to do so.

“Why are you here, Billy,” Steve said, ashamed at how quiet his words were. He wasn’t _scared_, per se. Max had guaranteed that Billy wouldn’t try anything, but that made his presence even more baffling. Steve almost wished Billy would swing at him, just so they could fall back into their familiar pattern.

But it wasn’t _quite_ a familiar pattern, because for a while it could’ve gone one of two ways. Things ended – and how _strange_ it was that Steve could only acknowledge the dance they’d done by acknowledging its end – as they had: bloody and violent on the Byers’ front lawn. But it hadn’t always been slated to end that way.

For much of their dance, Steve hadn’t been entirely sure whether the dilation of his eyes, the race of his pulse, and the sweat on his palms had been indicative of an inevitable fight or something else. (To put it simply, more than once Steve had found himself thinking _what the fuck is going on_ in a moment of post-orgasm clarity, his dick softening in his hand as fantasies of shirtless Billy faded from his mind.)

And here Billy was, as if he’d forgotten the dance had ended, as if he was returning for one last song.

“I’m here to see you, Steve,” Billy replied in a breathy way, as if he was nervous, and for a moment his eyes were overwhelmingly conflicted. Like he was at odds with himself.

And before Steve could begin to ponder _that_ further, and before he could even begin to unpack Billy’s usage of his first name, Billy reached across the counter and grabbed the stupid ascot on Steve’s uniform, reeling him in without a thought. As if they’d done this a million times before.

Their lips met at an awkward angle, Steve’s hands grappling for purchase on the counter as his balance was thrown off, but Billy corrected them after a moment, his other hand inching up to grip at Steve’s hair. Their lips slotted together perfectly, and a whole lot of things made sense all at once. Steve didn’t close his eyes for obvious reasons, but Billy _did_, his lashes brushing against Steve’s cheekbones. Then Billy’s tongue brushed up against Steve’s – because obviously Steve’s mouth had opened out of shock and for no other reason – and the spell was broken.

Steve threw himself back, his embarrassment doubling when he realized he’d been standing on his tip toes. Briefly, a trail of spit connected his mouth with Billy’s – God only knows _whose_ spit – and Steve let out a small whimpering noise. Outside of Scoops Ahoy, the crowd was carrying on with their business, no one at all the wiser as to what the hell had just happened.

For a moment, the conflicted look in Billy’s eyes was back, replacing his typical cocksure smirk. His eyes were flickering back and forth between his own hand, still white-knuckling Steve’s tie, and Steve’s flushed face.

“_Harrington_? I—” Billy started, licking his lips once, before the smugness seeped back into him. It was like watching him transform into another person, the vulnerability leaving his face instantly, and how odd it was to see Billy _vulnerable_.

Whatever he was going to say next was abruptly cut off by a gaggle of teenagers entering Scoops Ahoy. Billy moved aside, releasing Steve’s tie at long last. Steve thanked whatever God that was listening that the teenagers were far too absorbed with themselves to feel the palpable tension filling the ice cream parlor.

Steve finished serving the last kid, issuing a stern warning that they were closing up shop in thirty minutes and they’d all better be cleared out by then, before realizing that Billy was gone. He must’ve left at some point in the chaos. What the _fuck_?

Taking a slow, grounding breath – it was an anxiety thing he’d seen Mike and Will do before – Steve turned and walked back into the back room where Robin and Dustin were working a little too hard. Dustin had his ear pressed to the tape recorder, pointedly turned away from the window, and Robin was hiding her face in the dictionary. They were both blushing.

“We think we figured out the second sentence: the silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the West. There’s only one left,” Robin said without looking up.

“We can probably hold off until tomorrow, though. If you’ve got to go,” Dustin said, somehow sounding even more uncomfortable than Robin.

“Dustin. I… I haven’t spoken to Billy Hargrove since… _that_ night,” Steve said, trying to justify this fact to himself and to Dustin in equal measures.

“_What_ night?” Robin said, finally lowering the dictionary, her eyes wide. Dustin looked equally bewildered, pausing the tape without breaking eye contact with Steve.

“Then what was that?” Dustin said, gesturing at the window (as _if_ there was any way Steve wouldn’t know what he was talking about).

“I have no idea!” Steve squeaked out, before clearing his throat. “I have no idea,” he repeated in a lower, more manly tone.

“Wait, what happened _that_ night?” Robin interjected. The boys ignored her.

“Are you sure you aren’t leaving anything out?” Dustin snapped, his voice almost accusatory. “What about before that night?”

“Nothing like this… wait, what the hell? Nothing like this has ever happened before, _obviously_. I dated Nancy for over a year, Dustin!”

“Hello?” Robin tried once again to no avail.

“It’s not like it’d be shocking. It’s _Billy!_ He’s a wildcard. I mean sometimes – even that last night – we couldn’t tell whether you two were going to fight or…”

“_Or what_?!”

“Kiss,” Robin supplied helpfully. Dustin and Steve both made noises of disdain, the former wringing his hands like he couldn’t quite decide whether to put them over his ears or not. Robin cocked her eyebrow, placing the dictionary on the table as she completely abandoned the guise of normality.

“Robin,” Steve snapped, and she shrugged a shoulder.

“What? It didn’t look unpracticed, ‘s all. Dustin kind of caught me up while you were serving those kids. I mean, he apologized to Lucas, right?”

“Extensively, from Max’s report, which is _good_, but what do you _mean_ ‘Dustin caught you up?’” Steve whirled on the younger boy.

“On you and Billy and how you know each other. Max is part of Nancy’s brother’s friend group. My friend group. Uh. Yeah. That’s what I caught her up on,” Dustin said. Robin looked even more bewildered following Dustin’s odd disclaimer, but Steve was relieved. At least some things were remaining a mystery for the time being.

There was a terrible lull in the conversation then. None of their little trio knew how to proceed, the uncertainty of what had just happened somehow secondary to the fact that Robin and Dustin didn’t even register it as _peculiar_. Had Steve not mentioned it, they wouldn’t have addressed it either. Steve was trapped in his own mind, thinking and rethinking through every single interaction he and Billy had ever shared.

(Had his inner confliction really been that obvious to _everyone_?)

“Well, we can either continue to analyze Steve’s love life or we can knock out this last sentence before closing,” Robin said, breaking the prolonged silence and looking at Steve kindly. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he registered that this was the nicest she’d ever been to him. He nodded miserably.

“Yeah, okay, that sounds good,” Dustin said eagerly, picking up his legal pad once again.

And the night continued. The world continued to turn and the three of them finished translating the code, only forty-five minutes after the mall closed for the night. It was a success, a huge one, but Steve could hardly focus on the Evil Russians. Dustin’s words continued to bounce back and forth in his mind – “It’s _Billy!_ He’s a wildcard.” That couldn’t be all this was, right? Another fucking mind game to keep Steve on his toes (literally, his mind unhelpfully supplied).

“Why can’t he leave me alone?” Steve said under his breath as Dustin rambled on, repeating the code to himself backwards and forwards as he tried to make sense of it. Robin moved closer, resting a hand on Steve’s shoulder as she stood behind him. The warmth of her was comforting.

“Maybe he’s run out of ways to get to you,” she said, voice low enough that she wouldn’t interrupt Dustin’s ranting.

“That’s bullshit,” Steve said, lip curling wryly.

“Yeah, men don’t make sense,” Robin said, curling her fingers around his shoulder for a brief moment before releasing him.

“Where’s the nearest zoo?” Dustin said suddenly, whirling around to face them again. Robin stifled a laugh. Steve stifled a groan.


	3. Interlude Two

_Too many, far too many. The creature knew going in that the mall was a risky gambit – should’ve just waited it out at the pool! – but it was also too intrigued by the Harrington boy to just let him go. He was familiar, _known_ in some way. The Master was familiar with Harrington’s prior work, _Steve’s_ prior work… _

_The creature glanced down at the hat clenched in Billy’s fist. It had fallen off the Harrington boy’s head in the chaos, and Billy’s fingers were locked around it like it was keeping him afloat. Perhaps steering clear of Harrington was a good idea for the time being. Being near him, touching him in that way, had allowed Billy to breach the surface. However briefly, he had stolen his consciousness back, his heartrate spiking as his lips touched the Harrington boy’s. A crippling, white-hot shame brewing up inside of him as he enjoyed it. _

_The creature pondered what it could have done wrong. Couples of humans often touched each other in the way the creature had orchestrated – it had seen this on the street and at the pool, many times. Yet both Harrington and the vessel had reacted with shock and fear. There was a piece missing from the puzzle, and the creature deigned to let it remain missing for the time being. There was work to be done. _

_If the creature hurried, it could perhaps catch an unsuspecting life guard at the pool._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, last one for tonight! this is all i have proofread so far. i may get to the next chapter tomorrow (but more likely sunday)


	4. Chapter Two

Even though Steve now had the freedom to strip out of his Scoops Ahoy uniform in the comfort of his own bedroom, he found himself hesitant. He lay on his bed, touching his ascot where it hung down over his chest. It was wrinkled from where Billy’s hand had fisted it, not even three hours before. 

Steve wished he was high or drunk or _something_. Then, perhaps, he could convince himself that it had all just been a baffling dream. He almost could, except for the tie in his hand. Oh, what a calamity. (It was a word he’d heard Nancy use once – he didn’t completely understand its meaning, but he liked the way it rolled off his tongue. Calamity.)

He’d given Dustin strict instructions to call him if anything turned up, and after a pause, he’d told Robin the same thing. She’d cocked an eyebrow at him, but he wasn’t willing to chance it. Since they’d discovered the transmission had come from inside the mall, the Evil Russians had become far more interesting. Steve wasn’t _stupid_ – he knew the transmission likely had something to do with the other oddities that had cropped up in their town in years past. He just prayed he was wrong.

(Though the creature… Mind Flayer… _whatever_, could explain Billy’s behavior.)

That notion sent Steve reeling. He sat up in bed and reached for the phone on his nightstand – his parents were never home, but he still appreciated the convenience of having a private line in his room. Scribbled on a scrap of paper next to the phone was a handful of numbers that Steve had long since memorized. There was the Wheeler’s, and the Byers’, the Henderson’s, and the Sinclair’s. Hopper’s numbers too – both the cabin’s and the station’s. More so, there was the number to the Mayfield/Hargrove residence.

Before Steve could overthink it, and before he could ponder why he even had _this_ particular number memorized, he dialed. The phone rang for an agonizingly long time before it was picked up. 

“Hello?”

Of the people Steve _wanted_ to answer the phone, Susan was decisively next to last. It wasn’t as bad as Neil answering, but it still wasn’t helpful in any way. Rubbing his eyes with his free hand, Steve did everything in his power to conjure up a reasonable excuse for calling at ten o’clock at night.

“Hello Mrs. Hargrove, it’s Steve Harrington. I’m sorry for the late hour, but I couldn’t quite remember if Dustin was over at your house or at the Byers’. I’m supposed to pick him up before his curfew.” 

Fortunately, this was a pretty regular occurrence. Steve, along with the other parents (and _God_, he hated that he was included in that category), regularly called each other when curfew was nigh, attempting to locate any of the kids. If you found one, you could usually find the rest of them. 

“Sorry, Steve. He’s not here. Max and El at least are at Hopper’s. Maybe try there?” She said kindly, and Steve nodded a few times before he remembered she couldn’t see him. 

“Will do. Thanks, Mrs. H.” He hung up before she could reply, placing the phone back into its cradle and falling back flat on his bed.

(What the fuck was he _thinking_?) 

What if Billy _had_ answered? Steve had dialed that number like it was nothing. What could he have possibly said? “Hey Billy, you really got me thinking when you kissed me in the middle of the mall today. Want to come over so we can work through it? My parents are out.” Or, even better: “hey Billy, you should come over so I can tell if you’re possessed by the supernatural or not. If you are, I’ll call one of my child-friends to exorcise you. If you aren’t, how ‘bout a quickie?” 

(And he _didn’t_ do it because he was feeling lonely. Steve never felt lonely. He loved living in a huge, empty house by himself for most of the year. Really.)

Steve rolled over, buried his head in his pillow, and groaned loudly. He could call Hopper’s cabin, see what Max had noticed about her brother’s behavior, but perhaps that was a little overbearing. Robin was probably right – Billy was just running out of ways to get to him. 

With this in mind, Steve finally stood and stripped out of his Scoops Ahoy uniform. At first he just threw it haphazardly on his desk chair, like he usually did. His eyes kept drifting towards it, though, even as he settled into bed to try and sleep. After a fifteen minute staring contest with the inanimate ascot attached to his shirt collar, Steve groaned again, even louder.

He stomped over to his desk, taking the offending uniform and hanging it up in his closet. 

“Nancy’d be proud,” he murmured, cringing after the fact. Probably not great to talk to himself about his ex-girlfriend, especially considering the events of the past day.

Sleep didn’t come easily that night, but it came. After an hour of tossing and turning, Steve stopped staring at the ceiling. His dreams were filled with nonsensical Russian words swirling around in his field of vision as he chased after something, someone, that remained just out of his sight.

He awoke a few hours later to his phone ringing.

“Dustin? Wha’sa matter? Did something happen?” He mumbled into the handset, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes.

“Steve.”

He sat up quickly, flicking on his light. According to his alarm clock, it was already 7:34, about thirty minutes before his alarm was supposed to go off. Steve was wide-awake though. There was something about hearing Eleven’s soft, solemn voice over the phone that just jolted him back to life.

“El, hey. What’s wrong? Is everything okay?” He asked, running a hand through his hair.

“Yes. We are at Max’s house. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, of course I am. What happened? Why is your voice strange?” Holding the phone between his ear and shoulder, Steve stumbled out of bed. He dodged the phone cord as he walked to his closet, trying to wrestle his uniform on without putting the handset down. “I can be at Max’s house in ten minutes.”

“No, Steve. We are okay. Max’s mom said you called last night. Why?”

Steve paused in his quest to find his other Adidas sneaker, sitting down on the edge of his bed and holding the phone in both hands.

“Steve,” Eleven said, calmly, placatingly.

“Billy came by the mall yesterday. He wasn’t… normal.” There was some mumbling on the other end of the line before Max took over the call.

“What do you _mean_ he wasn’t normal?” She demanded.

“He just… wasn’t! Why are you calling me at seven in the morning?!”

“Steve.” Eleven was back on the line. “There was a hat in Billy’s bathroom, in the trash. It said Ahoy. The hat had blood on it, but we don’t think it’s your blood. It was touching a bloody whistle and a lifeguard bag. Not his.”

Steve froze, his mind replaying the events from yesterday for the millionth time. He remembered Billy’s hand in his hair… perhaps he could’ve grabbed the stupid hat in the chaos, but God, _why_? And why hadn’t Steve noticed sooner?

“He… uh…” Steve swallowed hard. If there was anyone he could admit this to, it was Eleven. “He kissed me. From out of nowhere, pretty much. I think he could’ve grabbed my hat when it happened. He… was… he was holding on to my hair.” 

“Hm,” Eleven said pensively. Steve could hear Max in the background, demanding to know what he was saying. He hoped El knew what discretion was.

“Look, do you want me to come get you? I could help you figure out what’s going on,” Steve offered.

“No, it’s okay. Max and I are going to the pool, to see whose bag this is.” 

“I guess that’s okay. Stay in public places, alright? If something’s really wrong, if Billy’s really… not right, he won’t try anything in a crowded place. At least, I don’t think he will. Go straight home after you find the bag’s owner, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Do you understand?”

“Yes.” With that, Eleven hung up on him. It wasn’t exactly reassuring.

Steve hoped with everything in him that the kids would listen (for _once_ in their lives) and not investigate this any further by themselves, but he knew it was fruitless. He was loath to admit it, but out of all of them – himself included – El was the most qualified to deal with the situation, were it to go south.

He placed the phone in its cradle and finally pulled his shoes on, thinking deeply. The situation was a real Catch-22 (based on how Nancy had explained the book to him in senior year English class). Either Billy was possessed - which would free Steve from the guilt that their _interaction_ had left hanging over him, but this option also meant that Billy was in grave mortal danger. They didn't always get along, but Steve didn't want him _dead_. 

The other possibility was somehow even more baffling: Billy wasn't possessed. He was acting of his own volition, and there was a perfectly logical explanation for the bloody items in his trashcan. The thought sent a spark of _something_ running through Steve.

"Oh, what the fuck." He shook his head as if he could manually reset his thoughts.

Now running appropriately late, Steve tried to fix his hair in the mirror as best he could before heading out. Perhaps Dustin or Robin will have cracked the code by the time he arrived. The thought put a wry smile on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kind of a filler chapter, but we Get Into It next time. there'll be a bit of a time skip, too


	5. Interlude Three

_“The girl, was it her?” The vessel of Heather said softly, moving to wipe at the wounds on Billy’s face. It was a pointless endeavor – _Billy_ was injured, not the consciousness of the creature within. He caught her hand. There were bigger things to worry about. _

_“Yeah, it was her. She knows now. She knows about me. She could’ve killed me.”_

_“Yes, but not us… not us.” She looked out over the crowd of others, standing in front of the Master. The creature stared over the hoard as well, but then turned to look back at Heather. She didn’t understand, she hadn’t _seen_ the girl. She didn’t know what the child was truly capable of. If anyone could take on their army, it was _her_.__ Eleven._

_More than that, the creature had finally realized where it knew the Harrington boy from. There was something about him that resembled the girl – some innately stupid, self-sacrificing property that radiated off of both of them, as well as the other children at the pool. They were all connected. The Harrington boy was _involved_ in this. _

_And it cursed its own foolishness, because it had put itself directly into the line of fire, both by going out of its way to interact with Harrington and perhaps by choosing Billy as a vessel in the first place._ _Now all the creature could do was hope: hope that Harrington, who didn’t seem all that bright in the first place, would remain utterly oblivious. If not, the creature would have to take the situation into its own hands and dispose of the Harrington boy itself._


	6. Chapter Three

This wasn’t how Steve _planned_ on spending his Fourth of July evening, so to say, but he figured that if he had to be held in captivity with the threat of torture looming over him with _someone_, Robin was a pretty decent companion. Maybe that was just the drugs talking, though.

They were thrown around in the back of the cart Dustin was driving, he and Erica both shouting at each other in the front seat. All Steve could really focus on was the light coming through the grated window that he and Robin were leaning against, speckled and dappled and all-too-saturated where it landed on her. The band-aid on her knee was pink, a single spot of color in the washed-out underground facility.

Steve _despised_ artificial light, all of a sudden. He wanted to know what Robin looked like in the sun. He wanted to be on the surface again, so he could call El and Max and see what had happened since his unexpected detour into the bowels of the earth.

He wondered if Billy was still alive.

Before he could think on _that_ any further, Dustin and Erica were manhandling the two of them out of the cart and into the elevator. Steve’s mind was too foggy to keep track of where they were, what they were doing. All he knew for sure was that Erica and Dustin were safe, and thank God for that. He didn’t know how he could possibly explain to Mrs. Sinclair that he’d kidnapped her daughter and accidentally led her into a militarized Soviet facility.

(Though, to be fair, he didn’t _know_ it was a militarized Soviet facility at the time.)

“Hey, you look like you’re surfing!” Robin laughed, pushing Steve around on a dolly as the elevator ascended.

“Surfing! Yeah!” Out of the corner of his eye, Steve noticed Dustin and Erica exchange a concerned look.

“They seem drunk,” Erica said.

“Why would they be _drunk_?” Dustin replied, utterly exasperated. 

Next thing Steve knew, he was on the floor with Dustin kneeling next to him, feeling Steve’s forehead and sharing concerned looks with Erica once again. They were speaking as well, but Steve couldn’t entirely understand what they were saying. His head was swimming, and his eyes locked on Robin.

“We all die, my strange little child friend,” she was saying sagely. “It’s just a matter of how and when.”

And suddenly Steve was unwittingly thinking about Billy again. He hoped the _how_ of his demise wouldn’t be the Mind Flayer, and he hoped that the _when_ wouldn’t be any time soon. Billy deserved to go out in a blaze of glory, in a motorcycle accident or something. Like Duane Allman! Except older. God permitting, much older.

“I hope he was just messing with me,” he whispered under his breath.

“What?” Dustin was only half-listening at this point, trying to find an alternative to Steve’s car (since the Russians had taken his keys), but Steve just waved him off, grimacing. Something hurt deep inside of him, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t from the beating that the Russians had inflicted on him.

Things started happening too quickly for Steve to keep up with, then. He was herded out of the elevator and before he could even really breathe in the fresh air, he was being dragged back inside. Someone was yelling in Russian, but it wasn’t any of the twenty or so words Steve had committed to memory, so he ignored it. Probably wasn’t important.

Then, all of a sudden, he and Robin were sharing a popcorn and watching a truly baffling movie alone, Dustin and Erica nowhere in sight.

“I don’t know if that man’s really a doctor,” Robin whispered, spitting out some half-chewed popcorn in the process. This struck Steve as overwhelmingly funny, and he laughed loudly until the man sitting behind them threatened to get security.

“Whatever,” Robin said, flouncing to her feet and marching out of the theater. Steve looked back and forth between the movie and Robin’s retreating form before groaning, chasing after her. Dustin had said something about staying put, but they weren’t going far. The lobby should be safe, right? 

As soon as he set his sights on a water fountain, Steve realized how overwhelmingly thirsty he was. He guzzled down as much as he could while Robin – oh, there she was! – stood behind him and tried to reason her way through _Back to the Future_, to no avail.

And _then _– after staring at the ceiling and feeling like he, himself, was traveling through time – Steve was vomiting in the Starcourt Mall Movie Theater’s women’s room. If he were in his right mind, he’d perhaps consider this a low-point.

He gradually realized, resting his face on the toilet seat, that maybe this had been beneficial in the grand scheme of things. The drugs were leaving his system now, and things were clearer. Holy hell, how the _fuck_ had Dustin and Erica rescued them from captivity? Steve briefly struggled to stand before realizing that probably wasn’t the brightest idea, collapsing next to the toilet again. They were both smart kids. They could handle themselves a little bit longer, until he and Robin came down at least.

Oh, yeah. _Robin_.

“The ceiling stopped spinning for me. Is it still spinning for you?” She asked from her stall. Steve craned his neck up to check.

“Holy shit. No. You think we puked it all up?”

“Maybe. Ask me something. Interrogate me.”

“Okay. Interrogate you, sure.” Steve screwed his face up, trying to think of a good question. “When was the last time you… uh, peed your pants?”

“Today,” she said matter-of-factly.

“_What? _”

“When the Russian doctor took out the bone saw.”

“Oh, my God,” Steve said, rubbing at his face in his hand as he laughed.

“It was just a little bit, though!” She said defensively, cracking up as well.

“Yeah,” Steve mumbled to himself. “It’s definitely still in her system.” 

“Alright, my turn,” she said, finally seeming to catch her breath again. Steve wondered what she looked like – her skin was probably flushed and glowing under her freckles.

“Okay, hit me.”

“Have you… ever been in love?”

Her question caught him off guard. Steve paused for a moment, biting his lip as he thought it through. There was an obvious answer, of course, but for some-fucking-reason a different name was cropping up in the back of his mind. He shook his head a couple times to clear it, because he may be high, but he wasn’t _crazy_. 

“Yep. Nancy Wheeler. First semester, senior year.”

“Oh my God, she’s such a priss,” Robin giggled. Steve scoffed.

“Hm. Turns out, not really,” he said softly, thinking about Nancy wielding her bat or, even better, her _gun_. Fortunately, Robin didn’t press him any further. He couldn’t even begin to think about how he was supposed to explain Nancy Wheeler.

“Are you still in love with Nancy?”

“No.” That was the truth.

“Why not?” Robin sounded like she was fishing for something. Steve felt like he was being gravitationally pulled towards her, because Robin made _sense_. He understood her. He could love her, he _knew_ he could.

“I think it’s because I found someone who’s a little bit better for me. It’s crazy. Ever since Dustin got home, he’s been saying, ‘you know, you gotta find your Suzie. You gotta find your Suzie.’” Steve was rambling, but he didn’t care. He needed Robin to know that it was _her_, that it _could be_ her.

“Wait, who’s Suzie?” 

“It’s some girl from camp, I guess his girlfriend. To be honest with you, I’m not 100% sure she’s even real. But that’s not… that’s not really the point. That doesn’t matter. The point is, this girl – you know, the one that I like – it’s somebody that I… I didn’t even talk to in school. And I don’t even know why. Maybe ‘cause Tommy H. would’ve made fun of me or… I wouldn’t be prom king. It’s stupid. I mean, Dustin’s right, it’s all just a bunch of bullshit anyways. Because, when I think about it, I should’ve been hanging out with this girl the whole time. First of all, she’s hilarious. She’s _so_ funny. I feel like, this summer, I have laughed harder than I have laughed… in a really long time. And she’s smart, _way_ smarter than me. You know, she can crack top secret Russian codes and you know? She’s honestly unlike anyone I’ve ever met before.” 

There was a silence, and Steve didn’t allow himself to overthink anything he’d said. It was all true. Robin was beautiful and sharp and she challenged him, made him think harder, made him think _better_. He just needed her to answer, to tell him she could love him too, if she tried to. That was all he needed.

“Robin?” He tapped on the wall of the stall. “Robin, did you just OD in there?”

“No,” she sighed. “I… am still alive.” Taking that as the invitation it clearly was, Steve pushed himself under the stall and sat across from her, their knees almost touching. Her expression wasn’t what he expected it to be. It was somewhere between concerned and... _fearful_. Steve was taken aback – he _never_ wanted to be the reason she looked upset.

“The floor’s disgusting,” she said wryly, finally looking at him.

“Yeah, well, I already got a bunch of blood and puke on my shirt, so… what do you think?”

“About?” 

“This girl,” Steve said, trying not to sound hopeful. Girls like it when you play it cool. He tried to channel King Steve, but he was coming up empty. 

“She sounds awesome.”

“She is awesome. And what about the guy?”

“I think he’s on drugs, and he’s not thinking straight.” That wasn’t the answer Steve had been expecting, but he didn’t mind reassuring her. Anything to make her perk up. Why did she look so damn _sad?_

“Really? ‘Cause I think he’s thinking a lot more clearly than usual.”

“He’s not.” Robin replied, almost knowingly. “Look, he doesn’t even know this girl, and if he _did_ know her, like… like _really_ knew her, I don’t think he’d even want to be her friend.” 

She was staring a hole in the stall wall, her eyes downcast, but ever-so-briefly her gaze flickered to him. She was still searching for something, some answer he didn’t know how to give her.

“No, that’s not true. No way is that true.” 

“Listen to me, Steve. It’s shocked me to my core, but I like you. I really like you, but I’m not like your other friends, and I’m not like Nancy Wheeler.” 

“Robin, that’s exactly why I like you.” She wasn’t Nancy, but what did that matter? She was bolder, and equally brave. As if she could hear his thought process, Robin scoffed softly.

“Do you remember what I said about Click’s class? About me being jealous and, like… obsessed?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, thoroughly confused now.

“It isn’t because I had a crush on you. It’s because… she wouldn’t stop staring at you.”

“Mrs. Click?”

“Tammy Thompson. I wanted her to look at _me_, but she couldn’t pull her eyes away from you and your stupid hair. And I didn’t _understand_, because you would get bagel crumbs all over the floor and you asked dumb questions and you were a _douchebag_. And… and you didn’t even like her and… I would go home and just scream into my pillow.”

“But… Tammy Thompson’s a girl.”

“_Steve_.”

“Yeah?” And all of a sudden, everything fell into place. The impossible had happened, and Steve had landed himself in a drugged-out stupor with the one person on the entire goddamn planet that could understand him. “_Oh_.”

“Oh,” Robin said, and he wanted to say something, anything to her. To make her realize that no, this wasn’t the end of the world – well, it _might_ have been, but not because of her confession. Unfortunately, all that came out of Steve’s eloquent mouth was:

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah, holy shit.” Robin echoed, and she still couldn’t even look at him. Another few beats passed in silence as Steve tried desperately to think of a way to reassure her without… without _telling_ her.

“Steve… did you OD over there?”

He didn’t answer, picking at a loose thread on his sock and looking anywhere but at Robin.

“I think it’s my turn to ask a question,” she said, pressing on without missing a beat. She reached out and pulled his hand away from where he’s fiddling with his sock. Steve let her, shocked at how strong her grip was.

“I’m not sure it is, but go ahead.” And his heart was seizing up, and his breaths were coming fast, because he knew he couldn’t lie to her, not after _that_. However, she didn’t quite ask the question he expected her to.

“Do you know why I told you that?” 

A beat of silence.

“…Because you thought I’d understand,” Steve said, finally meeting her gaze to see that her pupils were noticeably smaller. They weren’t drugged anymore, it was just the two of them all alone, without the truth serum as a buffer.

“I don’t think you really like me,” Robin said softly, pulling his hand closer to her chest, to her beating heart. “I think you like what… what I could be. How easy I could’ve been for you to love.” 

“Robin, stop it. It’s not like that at all. I _do_ like you—”

“Just not like you like him,” she whispered, cutting him off. The words hung heavily in the bathroom. She said them so softly, but they still seemed to echo all around them. The aching deep inside Steve lessened a bit, just enough that he could breathe again. 

“Yeah,” he confessed. “You probably think I’m so fucking pathetic.”

“Why would I think that?”

“Because it’s _Billy_. He beat me to a fucking pulp. He’s not a good guy, Robin.” 

“And Tammy Thompson’s a terrible singer. We don’t always get to choose who we…” her voice caught, “…who we… you know. And I _saw_ the two of you, back in school. Before whatever happened _that_ night, happened. He looks at you, when you’re not looking. Sometimes even when you _are_ looking. And it’s not how he looks at girls, it’s not a flirty little game he’s playing. He’s not stupid, he knows how dangerous that would be.” 

“He went out of his way to make my senior year a living hell.”

“Yeah, because he’s a stupid boy. The bottom line is that he went out of his _way_, and that he’s gotten better. He leaves the kids alone. Dustin told me. He apologized to Lucas of his own volition, Max didn’t even have to force him to. People can change, Steve.”

“Even the worst people?” He asked her. She nodded, pulling his hand to rest in the dip between her neck and her shoulder, cradling it there.

“I know you’re thinking it’s not real. That he’s… possessed, or whatever you and Dustin keep whispering about.” Steve tried to indignantly interrupt, but Robin continued. “No, shut up. I know you think it’s not real, but that’s because you’re just looking at the situation. You’re not _seeing_ it, not really. It would be so much easier for you if he _was_ possessed, right? You could forget this ever happened. Ignore it.”

“Robin…” 

“Stop ignoring it. You’re not seeing that whatever's there now, whatever made him do _that_ in Scoops Ahoy yesterday, was in him all along. We're going to figure out what’s wrong with your boy, and we’ll fix him.”

Steve knew she had a very limited understanding of the situation at hand. She couldn’t possibly know what “fixing him” would entail, how fucking terrible it would be (based on Joyce’s reports of what happened with Will), but she was willing to help him regardless. His heart swelled with affection for her.

“I… okay,” Steve said, unfurling his fist to rest against the side of her neck. It was easily intimate, and if she were anyone else, he would’ve kissed her in that moment. But, since it was Robin, she snorted out a laugh and ruined the moment.

“You’re not going to try and kiss me, are you?” She asked. Steve sputtered. 

“What? No!” And then she was laughing hysterically. He joined in, his hand falling back to his side. Dustin and Erica chose that particular moment to burst in, looking displeased to say the least.

“Okay, what the hell?” Dustin snapped, while Erica looked on disapprovingly.

Steve and Robin shared a glance, and the way her mouth was screwed up in an attempt not to laugh made him lose it once again. He may have been coming down from the worst high of his life, but God, he was glad Robin had been captured along with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know this is a little "real dialogue from the show" heavy, but i couldn't cut anything out of the bathroom scene. it's just the perfect set-up for steve and robin to talk to each other and find comfort in each other, both of them realizing _holy shit, i'm not the only one. i'm not alone._
> 
> i also added "internalized homophobia" in the tags bc like. yeah. 
> 
> i'm pretty happy with this chapter and its following interlude. i feel like the story is finally coming into itself.


	7. Interlude Four

_The creature was making excuses for itself, searching for reasons it couldn’t yet join the Master, merging with the other vessels into an ultimate consciousness. Perhaps it just wasn’t the right time. Perhaps the Master still needed the creature elsewhere to locate the girl. Perhaps the creature just hadn’t been in an opportune location when the merging occurred. _

_But deep within itself, the creature knew these excuses were just that: excuses. The others inhabiting Heather, and Tom, and everyone else, hadn’t had any slips. The consciousness of their vessels were completely gone, annihilated by the presence of their respective creatures, but that was not the case with Billy. He still loomed beneath the surface, too close for comfort, and he’d slipped free more than once. Whenever he was faced with the people he cared about – the Harrington boy, the memory of his absent mother, even his sister – he emerged. _

_Billy was a lot like he perceived Harrington to be: fiercely protective and unwilling to back down, even though the odds were never in his favor. It would be so much easier, so much more _painless_, to simply cease. “Don’t be afraid. It’ll be over soon. Just try and stay very still.” As many times as the creature had used Billy to whisper these words into the ears of their victims, the vessel still hadn’t taken them to heart. He _was_ afraid, his fear thrumming under his skin constantly in a way that drove the creature mad, but he refused to stay _still_. _

_The creature felt the aching pain of being separated from the Master, and yet it knew it couldn’t join the others as long as Billy was still conscious, still fighting like this. More so, the longer the creature was away from the Master, the weaker it became._

_(Its confidence that it would be able to subdue Billy permanently, to break his will, was dwindling.) _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter's the last one, except for the epilogue. it's a doozy.


	8. Chapter Four

“Steve, do you know the odds that you’re going to time this right? Minuscule to none. Drive _now_, cut him off sooner,” Robin implored him, holding onto the armrest next to her with both hands. Steve stayed silent, chewing his lip as he watched the scene unfold in front of them.

“Holy shit, does Nancy Wheeler have a gun?!” Robin continued, leaning forward to get a better look. Nancy did indeed have a gun, taking a bold last stand as she positioned herself in front of the car, aiming her gun at Billy.

“Robin, you’re better at this math shit than me. I need you to tell me when to go if I want to hit him,” Steve muttered, all his attention on Billy’s car.

“What?!”

Billy revved the engine, and Nancy fired the gun. It wasn’t a warning shot, shattering Billy’s windshield as loud as… well, a gunshot. It missed him by inches.

“Robin!”

Billy was in motion now, accelerating towards the kids, towards Nancy. She remained composed firing off shot after shot, missing every time by mere inches. Steve could see the panic in her, the way her shoulders were tensing. The kids and Jonathan were all yelling as the car refused to start.

“Fuck, okay…” Robin said, her breath catching as she leaned closer to the windshield. “Now!”

Steve hit the gas, slamming them both back in their seats. He reached Billy in the nick of time, colliding with the Camaro and sending both cars spinning. Steve was propelled forward, yanked back by his seatbelt just as quickly, and threw out an arm in front of Robin (a move he refused to call a maternal instinct).

It took Steve a few moments to regain his bearings, but as soon as he could, he refocused on Robin. In the background, he could see the hood of the Camaro ignite.

“Are you okay?”

“Ask me tomorrow,” she replied shakily.

A loud roar jerked them both back into reality, and they looked up to see a monster clamoring onto the roof of the mall. It appeared to be made entirely of viscera, a hulking, glistening mass of flesh and organs. Robin made a retching noise in the back of her throat that seemed subconscious, staring up at the beast in terror and awe.

“Oh, shit,” she hissed, standing up to see better. Steve followed suit and the two of them stared, wide-eyed.

The blaring of a car horn distracted Steve from the monster, and he turned, spotting Nancy in the front seat of Joyce’s car.

“Get in!” She said frantically, and Robin immediately leapt out of the Todfather’s car to do so. Steve moved to follow her, but he froze. Unwittingly, his eyes drifted to Billy’s Camaro, six or seven yards away from them. The entire car was on fire, and Billy was unconscious within it, his head lolling against the shattered driver’s side window.

“You guys go!” He commanded. “Draw that thing to you, keep it away from the mall. I’m… I think I have an idea.”

“Steve!” Robin snapped, but he waved her off, starting towards Billy’s car. She groaned loudly, running towards him to stand at his side. He halted abruptly, because there was no way he was going to let Robin die for him. For _Billy_.

“Robin, go with them,” he tried again, but she shook her head.

“I told you I’d help you fix him. I’m not backing down now,” she said breathlessly, pushing her sweaty hair out of her face as she continued walking towards the Camaro, leaving Steve in her wake. He watched her go, speechless, and then jerked violently as someone placed their hand on his arm. The car carrying the kids skidded away as Steve turned to see Nancy Wheeler standing next to him, her eyes focused and grim as she reloaded her gun.

“What the fuck?” He said. She smiled humorlessly.

“You’re going to need someone to cover your ass while you and ice cream girl do whatever the hell you’re about to do,” she told him, starting for the Camaro as well. After a beat, she turned to look at him again. “I owe you one, Steve. You saved my life back there.”

Nancy continued to walk, stopping a good twenty paces from Billy’s car. She turned and reassumed her shooting stance, pointing her gun at the monster on the roof.

Steve nodded to himself stupidly, wondering how he ever landed Nancy-fucking-Wheeler as a girlfriend, before sprinting towards Robin. She was trying to pull Billy’s unconscious body out of the car like a normal, good-intentioned person, but Steve stopped her.

“The creature possessing him is violently opposed to heat,” Steve explained hurriedly, piling Billy back into the smoking car.

“So we’re setting him on_ fire? _” Robin said, wide-eyed, and Steve shrugged.

“Just a little.”

“A little?!”

“Guys,” Nancy shouted from behind them. Steve managed to turn around just in time to see the creature climb off the building, its limbs making a horrible squelching sound as they moved. It paid them little mind, smashing the Todfather’s car as it rushed past them to follow Jonathan.

“It thinks Eleven is in the car,” Nancy said, de-cocking her gun as she came to stand by Steve and Robin. “Hopefully Jonathan can keep it away long enough for us to take care of Billy. It’ll likely come rushing back once it realizes what we’re up to.”

“Where _is_ Eleven?” Steve asked.

“She, Mike, and Max must still be in the mall. We’ll go back in there and find them after this… pans out.” Nancy didn’t sound too confident in Steve’s ability to succeed, but perhaps that was fair.

“I’ll be frank: I don’t know how we’re going to do this without accidentally killing him,” Robin said, leaning closer to look at Billy through the open car door.

“I was there when we did this with Will. I think I know how we need to handle it. Steve, open the trunk. And you, it’s Robin, right?” Nancy asked, her charm and politeness shining through (even at the end of the world) as she turned to look at Robin.

“Yeah, it’s Robin,” she said, eyes wide.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Nancy. Can you stay here and make sure the car doesn’t fill with smoke? We can’t let him asphyxiate.”

“Uh huh,” Robin replied stupidly, and Steve rolled his eyes. He remembered when _he_ first met the real Nancy Wheeler, that night in Joyce’s house with Jonathan and all the Christmas lights. He’d reacted the exact same way.

Steve walked around the car and managed to get the trunk open. Fortunately the wreck hadn’t rendered it completely unopenable, but he did have to use some brute strength to work around the dented metal.

“Nancy, what do I need?” He asked, and she peered over his shoulder.

“Grab those jumper cables. And that crowbar, give that to me,” she said, continuing to mutter to herself as she took the crowbar from Steve and walked around the car. He held the jumper cables uselessly, walking around to stand next to Robin who was trying to look like she wasn’t staring at Nancy.

“Can you stop checking out my ex-girlfriend right in front of me?” Steve asked, and Robin shrugged a shoulder.

“You didn’t tell me she was _cool_.”

Steve was about to respond when Nancy walked back around the car to stand with them again.

“What did you do with the crowbar?” He asked, and Nancy pointed to the hood of the car, where the crowbar was sitting half-engulfed in the flames. There was a grim expression on her face that deterred Steve from asking any further questions.

“Now we need to bind his arms and legs with the jumper cables. I doubt they’ll hold him for very long, but hopefully it’ll be long enough,” Nancy instructed, and Robin leapt to obey.

Nancy moved away from them, staring at the treeline with her gun in her hand, as Steve and Robin pulled Billy halfway out of the car. The moment they'd opened the door, a cloud of smoke had spilled out of the cab. The fire was still centralized on the hood, not touching the interior of the car yet, so Billy was completely unscathed. The blood in his veins was black, standing out starkly in his face and arms. Steve pushed the sweaty hair out of Billy’s face and stared down at him while Robin finished binding his legs.

“Harrington, stop _thinking_,” Robin snapped at him. “You’re not going to accomplish anything if you just sit there feeling sorry for him. Tie his fucking arms up.”

“She’s right, Steve,” Nancy said, sounding truly regretful that she had to break this news to him.

“I know, I just…” he said, swallowing hard as Nancy walked up behind him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“I know you’re conflicted,” she murmured. Her touch was grounding and familiar, and he leaned into her effortlessly. “You need to do this, Steve. We’re the only chance he’s got.”

“It’s not a very good chance, though,” he replied.

“It’s better than fucking nothing. Now tie his hands or I’ll do it myself,” Robin snapped impatiently, and Steve could see why. Billy’s eyes were fluttering and his brow was furrowing as he neared consciousness. Quickly and precisely, Steve tied Billy’s hands together and all three of them worked together to shove him back into the car.

“Now what?” Steve asked, but Nancy was already walking around to the trunk again.

“We wait, and we pray that we don’t need to use this,” she said, pulling out a tarpaulin that had been laid down as a protective layer between the interior of the vehicle and… whatever Billy had been carting around back there.

(Though perhaps the right word to use was _whomever_. Steve felt a sharp pang of pity for Heather and her family, all of whom Eleven figured were dead, their bodies absorbed into the monster.)

“What would we do with that?” Robin asked.

“If it doesn’t get hot enough in the car fast enough, we’ll have to hold this over the hole in the driver’s side window to trap the smoke in,” Nancy said.

“That’d kill him, Nance!” Steve said, unable to keep the panic out of his voice.

“Probably. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, because I _will_ choose us over him, Steve,” she said seriously.

No one spoke about it any further, all three of them staring at the flaming car and waiting for Billy’s inevitable reawakening. It didn’t take long. Only a few minutes passed before he was flailing around in the car, pulling at his restraints while he choked on the smoke.

“He’s going to break them,” Nancy hissed, cocking her gun again. The sound shook Steve to his core. He slowly kneeled on the ground, breathing as slowly and evenly as he could. The beginning of a wildly idiotic idea was forming in his mind.

“Robin,” he said, and she dropped to his side as Nancy pointed her gun at the car, preparing to enact a more permanent solution, were the jumper cables to fail.

“Yeah?”

“I’m about to do something really stupid. Don’t tell Dustin,” he murmured. “And don’t let Nancy stop me, okay? Tell her to do what she needs to do to end this.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Robin said, but it was too late. Steve walked over to the Camaro and threw the driver’s door open. Billy was laying across the entire front seat, writhing in panic and pain from the heat. The black veins on his face and arms were even more pronounced.

“He hasn’t escaped the cables yet because he’s weak from the heat, but that doesn’t mean he won’t!” Steve yelled to Robin and Nancy. The latter tried to yell back at him – “Steve, what are you _doing?! _” – but Robin grabbed Nancy and they both watched helplessly as Steve saluted them, slid into the car next to Billy, and slammed the door behind himself.

Immediately, he was dripping sweat, wincing in pain as it trickled into the cuts on his face. He managed to dodge Billy’s flailing kicks and pinned his feet down by climbing atop him, restraining Billy with his entire body weight. Billy – not the creature within him – was whimpering softly, eyes darting around as he came to.

“_Harrington? _” Billy said, his gaze shuddering to lock on Steve’s.

“Yeah, it’s me. Don’t cream your pants,” Steve said, bracketing Billy’s legs as best he could with his knees. He placed a forearm over Billy’s throat and pressed lightly.

“You gotta… you gotta go. It’s still got me. I’m going to hurt you,” Billy choked out, throwing his head back as the lines of black on his neck started to pulse painfully.

“It’s fine, Hargrove. We’ve got you. I’ve got you,” Steve said gruffly, his head pounding. Inhaling the smoke was causing his adrenaline to wear off and he was starting to feel the toll the earlier beatings had taken on him. _Fucking Russians_.

“_Steve_,” Billy said, his eyelids fluttering as the blood vessels in his eyes flashed black in the low light.

“Nancy, if you’re going to do something, do it _now_,” Steve shouted over his shoulder. Billy’s body was starting to vibrate underneath him, doing everything in its power to buck him off. Steve pressed down on Billy’s neck and clenched his knees more firmly around Billy’s hips, keeping him in place.

There was a yelp of pain and some scuffling outside of the car, but Steve’s vision was hazy and he couldn’t completely focus on it. All that seemed real anymore was the heat and the sweat of Billy beneath him. Then the driver’s side door was thrown open and Robin was there with Nancy’s pocket knife, her shirt and vest missing. Before Steve could process what the _fuck_ was happening, she was hacking part of Billy’s jeans away before stepping back.

“Steve, you need to move,” Nancy commanded.

“I can’t. If I do, he’ll get up and escape,” he gasped, taking in as much air as he could while the door was open.

“Steve,” Robin said desperately.

“No, there’s no time,” Nancy said, pulling her back. Steve realized where Robin’s shirt had gone. It was wrapped around one end of the crowbar that Nancy had placed in the fire earlier, acting as an oven mitt. The end Nancy wasn’t holding was glowing faintly orange.

“Do it!” Steve shouted as Billy started struggling even more violently. There was a snapping sound and a sharp sting against Steve’s stomach where his shirt had ridden up, and he realized Billy had broken the restraints on his arms.

Nancy didn’t hesitate any longer, pressing the glowing end of the crowbar to Billy’s leg. He jolted violently, letting out an inhuman cry. The movement of his body caused Steve to shift, and his leg slipped right into the crowbar as well. He gritted his teeth - the pain was _excrutiating_ \- but he kept his eyes trained on Billy’s face. All at once, Billy jerked upright, violently expelling a thick, black smoke from his mouth.

“What the _fuck? _” Robin cried out, and Nancy leapt out of the way. All Steve could do was hug Billy’s torso as they both shuddered, the brand on Steve’s leg throbbing agonizingly. Billy collapsed backwards, unconscious, with Steve still on top of him. He would’ve been content to stay there in that burning car were it not for the roar in the distance.

“Fuck, Steve, it knows we’ve got Billy,” Robin said. At the same time, Nancy shouted, “it’s coming back! We have to get inside!”

Pulling from a last reserve of strength that Steve didn’t even know he still had, he wrestled himself out of the car.

“Just walk yourself inside, we can get him,” Robin said, using Nancy’s knife to cut the cables still wrapped around Billy’s ankles. The two girls yanked him out of the Camaro, looping one of his arms over each of their shoulders as they started towards the mall’s entrance. Steve walked ahead of them, unable to watch Billy’s feet trailing uselessly on the ground. _Oh God_, he thought. _We’ve killed him. We’ve actually killed him._

They made it back inside the destruction of the food court where, for some reason, Eleven, Mike, and Max were waiting.

“What happened? Why weren’t you with the others?” Steve demanded, using up all his remaining strength to walk over to them. He sat down on the ground, hard.

“We got separated! They ran for the car and we went in the back hallway, behind the Gap. We just came out here because it’s easier to defend ourselves out in the open than in a tiny hallway,” Mike said.

“It’s good that you didn’t come with us. The Mind Flayer was only chasing the car because it thought Eleven was inside,” Nancy said, coming up behind Steve with Billy and Robin in tow. They all looked rather worse for wear. The white camisole Robin had been wearing underneath her uniform was streaked with sweat and blood.

“Billy?!” Max and Mike said at the same time, trying to scurry back to their feet. What inane act of bravery they were going to attempt, Steve couldn't even imagine.

“No,” El said, her brow furrowing as she placed a placating hand on Mike’s leg. “It’s gone. Whatever was in him, it’s gone now. He’s back to normal.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call Billy’s default setting ‘normal,’” Max said wryly, but she dropped back to her knees, helping Nancy and Robin lower Billy to the ground. Steve watched them and gradually became aware of the fact that he was crying.

“Steve?” Robin sat down next to him.

“Yeah?”

“It’s going to be okay. No matter what he’s like when he wakes up. We did everything we could.”

Steve was about to answer, to tell her he _knew_ that already, _obviously_ it’s all going to be okay – but he’d be lying, because everything inside of him was screaming out that it wasn’t going to be okay at all. What if Billy didn't ever wake up? What _then?_

Before he got the chance to say anything, Max let out a gasp. Steve turned around to see that the monster was back. It stood next to the broken glass roof, slowly and sickeningly climbing down into the food court. For a creature of its size, it could move almost silently, the only noise being the squishing sound of its body parts slotting together.

Nancy had her gun out in an instant, pulling it from the waistband of her pants and cocking it. Steve shoved Robin behind him roughly, listening as Max and Mike rallied around Eleven. They could get her out of the mall, he told himself over and over again. When the monster killed Nancy and turned on him and Billy, they’d have the common sense to run. Robin could help them. They’d be okay.

Steve pulled Billy’s limp form along with him as he settled against a post on the edge of the food court, watching as Nancy fired a clip’s worth of shots into the monster. It didn’t cause any real damage, and Steve flinched away as the creature started for her. As a last resort, she threw her empty gun, striking it on the head. The monster was unaffected, opening its giant, gaping maw and lunging towards Nancy.

And then the room erupted in light and sparks. Nancy dove out of the way, landing on her side and scrambling away in the chaos.

“Flay this, you ugly piece of shit!” Lucas cried out as the kids and Jonathan ignited another volley of fireworks to use as ammunition.

“Oh,” Steve said breathily.

“Did I just… die?” A voice said, and Steve looked down to see Billy blinking his eyes open, looking utterly confused. He didn’t attempt to move from where his head was resting in Steve’s lap.

“Probably,” Steve said, hysterical laughter bubbling up out of him. Since they were already dead, he moved his hand to rest in Billy’s sweaty hair, stroking it softly, and since they were already dead, Billy slowly moved his hand up to hold Steve’s where it was. (Their actions didn’t have consequences anymore, considering they were dead and all.)

“Sorry about the Camaro, by the way. Think it may’ve blown up,” Steve murmured.

“That only happens in the movies,” Billy said, cracking a smile before wincing. Considering they were both dead, they still seemed to be in a lot of pain.

“Did I do that to you?” Billy asked after a beat.

“What?”

“Your face.” Billy looked genuinely distressed at the prospect. He tried to reach for Steve’s bruises, but he seemed unable to do so. His hand fell back down into Steve’s lap, and Steve took it and held it tightly in his own.

“No, you didn’t. Would you believe me if I told you Evil Russians took me captive?”

“Hell, after the week I’ve had, I’d believe anything,” Billy said, gasping out a laugh. A firework went off, far too close to them, and the monster wailed in pain. Steve watched it as best he could, but his vision had gone double.

“Steve?” Billy said. “You gonna die for real?”

“Maybe. We… we inhaled a lot of smoke,” Steve said haltingly. Billy nodded as best he could, drawing Steve’s gaze back to him. His blue eyes were glassy, lighting up every time another round of fireworks went off. People were yelling all around them, possibly trying to communicate with Steve and Billy, but they were too far gone to hear.

“Can I ask you something?” Steve gasped out.

“Yeah.” And they may not have been dead yet, but they were certainly dying (probably). There was no point in beating around the bush.

“When you kissed me, was it you or was it the thing possessing you?” Steve asked. The monster screeched again in what Steve was sure was a very loud and menacing way, but he was having a hard time focusing on anything that wasn’t Billy.

It took Billy an agonizing few seconds to muster up the breath to answer.

“It was the creature.”

“Oh,” Steve replied, letting his head fall back against the pillar.

“But the creature did it because I wanted to in a way that made it think … I already had at some point… in the past. It was trying to act… how I would act, so no one would know I was… possessed.”

“_Oh_.” Steve looked back down at Billy, whose confession had been hindered by his gasping for air.

“Oh,” Billy repeated, his eyes fluttering a couple times before he went limp again.

Steve placed his fingers on Billy’s neck, finding his pulse and touching it like it was his life line. Billy's heartbeat was slow, but it was undoubtedly there. With the very end of his consciousness, he stared at the monster. It stumbled and fell to the ground, letting out another unearthly shriek – this one so loud that even Steve couldn’t ignore it.

“They must have closed the portal!” Dustin shouted, somewhere in the distance, his voice cutting through the fog surrounding Steve.

The creature shuddered once, twice more before stilling. The remainder of Steve’s adrenaline died along with it and he slumped over, Billy’s head still resting in his lap. He kept his fingers on Billy’s pulse point.

_Thump… thump… thump…_

His heartbeat soothed Steve and allowed him to float into unconsciousness, and the haziness that had been on the edge of his vision since the car was finally clouding it completely. Steve rested for the first time in days, only briefly coming to when the EMTs separated he and Billy, putting them on separate stretchers.

Robin – wrapped up in some cop’s jacket – was walking alongside him, her face pale and worried, and Steve wanted her to know it was okay. Whatever happened next was okay, because he _knew_ and Billy knew that he knew.

“It was him,” he croaked out from under an oxygen mask that had apparently been placed over his mouth at some point. It wasn’t the monster that had kissed him. It was _Billy_. Somehow, Robin instantly understood, lagging behind as they loaded Steve’s stretcher into an ambulance.

“Of course it was him. You saw,” she said breathlessly, and the last thing Steve glimpsed was a look of utter relief on her face. Then the paramedics shut the doors of the ambulance, cutting him off from whatever horrors were remaining in Starcourt Mall.

Once again, he rested.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, that's it (except for the epilogue)! i know it's kind of a cliffhanger. also i just want to thank everyone so much for the kind comments. i was very nervous writing this (i usually write for less well-known pairings, so not many people see my work normally) but reading the kind words y'all leave makes it worth it. thank you!!
> 
> also here's a fun behind the scenes thing: i didn't originally plan on nancy helping steve and robin to rescue billy, but after trying to write their Bi/Lesbian Stupidity Solidarity™, i knew they needed nancy's help. also i want nancy and robin to be in love¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	9. Interlude Five

_Agony. Dark_ness_. _Cessation_._

Billy’s eyes flickered open.


	10. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three months later.

It didn’t always make sense, but perhaps that was a good thing. It would be awfully boring if everything in the world always made sense. However, this thing of theirs made sense when it mattered – not when a wide-eyed Dustin asked for clarification, not when Joyce gave Steve a concerned and motherly look, not even when Will stared at them both like the universe had finally aligned for him.

(Maybe that last one did matter a little bit in the long run. In Will’s long run, at least.)

Moments like _this_ – on the day the Byers family was moving, of all days – always made sense. Steve’s parents were gone, but for the first time in a long time he wasn’t bothered by it. He no longer felt alone. In the past month, his room had been transformed from a posh, neatly decorated catalogue bedroom to something between an apocalypse bunker and Mötley Crüe’s green room in any given venue, on any given tour.

Steve’s nail-bat was leaning against his dresser, which overflowed with clothing, half of which wasn’t his. Robin’s acid-washed denim jacket was thrown haphazardly over the back of Steve’s desk chair. A radio given to him by Dustin was sitting on his nightstand, next to the phone. It had remained blessedly silent since Starcourt. Two sets of car keys were placed (or tossed, rather) into the bowl on his desk. A pair of inhumanly smelly boots lay abandoned in the middle of the floor, and their owner lay in Steve’s bed, still sleeping soundly. 

Billy was close to waking up – he always started murmuring in his sleep right before he rejoined the land of the living. His chest was bare and tan and the way his necklace hung down between his love-bitten collarbones was sinful. If things were different, if things made less sense, perhaps Steve would be wary of being caught staring.

As it was, he remained nose-to-nose with Billy until he woke up, fluttering his eyes open and immediately yawning right in Steve’s face.

“Rude,” Steve muttered, leaning just slightly closer to nip at Billy’s lower lip. Billy laughed, pulling Steve even closer to him and hugging him as hard as his newly-awakened body could manage. It was hard enough for Steve to tap out after a few seconds, gasping out laughter. 

This was something Billy did often, pouring every ounce of his physical strength into holding on to Steve. For the time, at least, it was as close as he could get to voicing the magnitude of what they meant to each other. The three months after Starcourt – and every single event in Steve’s life was now categorized as being “before Starcourt” or “after Starcourt” – hadn’t been easy for anyone, least of all Billy.

At first, he’d refused to leave Steve’s side, coming to find him in the hospital in the dead of night and just sitting next to his bed with his head in his hands. He didn’t want to be touched, so Steve didn’t touch him. 

In the weeks following their respective discharges, he’d avoided Steve like the plague. He hadn’t been back home either, according to Max. Billy didn’t have someone like Robin – someone who could talk him down and tell him he’d be okay, someone who could reassure him he was normal. He was alone in the world somewhere, coming to terms with everything, getting over the way Neil had fucked with his head since his mother left. Steve’s heart ached for Billy, but all he could do was _wait_. He’d been waiting years, and he could afford to wait a little bit longer.

And eventually, the waiting paid off. Almost exactly two months after Starcourt, Billy sought Steve out, knocking on his front door in a way that seemed almost proper. Everything that had happened since was almost inevitable, an ongoing domino effect. 

“How’s your leg, pretty boy?” Billy asked, voice gravelly from sleep, and Steve kicked the blankets off of both of them to lift his right leg into the air. There on his calf was the faded, puckered-pink outline of the crowbar. Steve’s burn wasn’t as bad as Billy’s, but it had scarred all the same.

“It’s okay,” Steve said. Billy still reached up to run his fingers along the wound, like he could heal it if he touched it lightly enough. Steve knew that Billy would never say it aloud, but he felt responsible for the scar in a way. The skin hadn’t regained feeling yet, and part of Steve doubted it ever would, but the way Billy touched him was still so gentle.

“Your kids are leaving today, right?” Billy continued, leaning to speak directly into Steve’s collarbones. 

“Two of them, yeah. Jonathan, too.” Steve put his leg back down, a familiar sense of loss bubbling up in him.

“Say goodbye yet?”

“Yeah, I said goodbye to them at dinner last night. I’m fucking awful at all this sappy, goodbye shit. I always cry.”

“Did you cry when you thought I was going to die?” Billy asked.

A beat.

“Of course. You know that.” Somehow, _I’d cry if you died_ had become as pertinent as an _I love you_.

“Still weird to hear about it though.” 

“Billy, I’ve told you every detail of that night, backwards and forwards. You were practically _there_,” Steve said. He tried to smile, but it was humorless. It was too soon to make light of what had almost been their last night. What _was_ actually Hopper’s last night. Steve’s breath caught, because that particular wound was still entirely raw and untouched.

“Mm, I guess so,” Billy said, rolling off of Steve and onto his side. He pulled Steve right along with him, blanketing himself with Steve’s arm wrapped snugly around his ribs.

“Would you have told me, do you think?” Steve whispered, an unrepeatable secret. Billy didn’t need to ask what he was talking about. 

“You mean if I wasn’t on the verge of death?” Billy tried to come off like he was joking, but it fell flat.

“Yes.”

“Probably not. I kept hoping you’d move on and find some pretty girl to settle down with, someone better than me. Hell, I kept hoping _I’d_ find some pretty girl to settle down with.”

“Like Nancy’s mom?”

“Oh, fuck off.” Now Billy was laughing for real, trying to roll out of Steve’s clutches. Steve didn’t relent, pressing kisses to Billy’s spine between giggles, and it didn’t take long for Billy to relax again. He turned to face Steve once more, staring into his eyes like he was looking for something.

“I don’t think I’ll ever find something realer than this,” Billy admitted. 

Steve’s breath caught in a way that, a year ago, he’d think was unbearably queer. Billy didn’t _ever_ say shit like that. He was still rough around the edges when it came to this thing between them, like if he didn’t explicitly acknowledge the codependency he’d fostered with Steve, maybe it would be normal. Maybe he could pretend they were just friends helping each other through a tough time. 

And even though Steve _knew_ Billy had to justify things to himself in that way, and even though Steve _knew_ how Billy really felt, hearing it aloud was entirely different.

“I hope you don’t. I don’t think I could sleep through the night without you next to me, anymore,” Steve whispered back. As long as they were telling secrets, he may as well get that one off his chest.

(And even though Steve knew Billy wasn’t going to panic and punch him, as he was wont to do in their high school days whenever things got a little too _real_, he still feared his reaction.) 

But Billy simply did that Thing again, where he hugged Steve as tightly as he could, as if there were any chance in hell that Steve would try to get away. Steve relaxed into the embrace, hugging Billy right back as if he could merge them into one if he squeezed hard enough. With his breathing almost cut off, Steve could nearly forget that on the other side of town, the Byers family was leaving with El in tow.

It hurt so much because Steve almost _wished_ he’d never see them again. If they came back, it’d be because something else terrible had happened in Hawkins, something only Eleven could remedy. He didn’t want that for her, for any of them. Jim had given his life for it to be over, so for the love of _God_, it better _fucking_ be over this time. Steve wiped his eyes on Billy’s bare shoulder, and Billy fixed him with a certain look. Steve could immediately tell it was going to be one of _those_ days for both of them: a day where they’d spend hours overthinking “what-ifs” about that night in Starcourt. How easily one or both of them could have died, their picture appearing in the paper alongside Jim’s. 

But instead of bottling these thoughts up – like they had when they first started cohabitating – they were starting to confide in each other. Billy’s brows furrowed as he carefully considered how to proceed.

“Thanks for, uh, not giving up on me.”

“Billy, of course—” 

“No. You had a thousand chances to leave me behind and let me die. And after the way I treated you? You could have. I wouldn’t have blamed you.” It wasn’t even self-pitying – Billy’s words were matter-of-fact, like he was observing the weather outside their bedroom window. If he wasn’t pitying himself, Steve wouldn’t either.

“Leaving you wasn’t an option. For me, I mean. I couldn’t… let you die there. It’s not who I am. If I’d left you behind in a burning car, I’d never be able to stop thinking about it. I’d never get that picture out of my head.”

Billy stared at him, his eyes wide and his lashes full, before he gently knit his fingers in Steve’s hair and guided their lips together. Steve let his fingers drift over the pulse point on Billy’s neck, pressing down softly as his heartrate escalated. 

Billy kissed Steve like it mattered.

For the foreseeable future, Steve only wanted this. Everyone else in the world could fade away and as long as Steve’s bedroom was left untouched, he’d be okay. It sounded stupid and it sounded irrational but it made _sense_, somehow, against all odds. And it _was_ love, at the end of the day, even if they couldn’t quite call it that yet. Despite being unspoken, this love was straight-forward. Self-explanatory. More often than not, it made sense – in a town where absolutely nothing else did – and Steve was going to hold on to it as long and as hard as he could.

As if Billy could read his thoughts, he smiled against Steve’s jaw, nuzzling into him. Their dance continued.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! i know you may have wanted an ending where they say they love each other and live happily ever after (trust me, i did too), but i felt like it wouldn’t really be true to billy. after all he's been through w the mind flayer and neil, i think it’s too soon for him to say it aloud (but he’s sure thinking it).
> 
> [my tumblr](http://www.acwrite.tumblr.com) :)
> 
> finally, the title of this work is from the My Chemical Romance song “My Way Home is Through You” — “Can’t find my way home, but it’s through you and I know what I’d do just to get back in (your) arms.”
> 
> sorry for being emo on main, but the song is too perfect for harringrove. I couldn’t resist ♡


End file.
